Solomon: It’s a big fall from pedestal for Texans

Commentary: It’s a big fall from pedestal for Texans

By Jerome Solomon |
December 20, 2008

Fans will get a chance to see what Texans coach Gary Kubiak, right, is made of Sunday against Oakland.

The Texans are on a jolly-good roll.

Their offense looks unstoppable. Their defense looks like, actually, it doesn’t look like their defense at all, at least not the one we’ve come to know and loathe the past few seasons.

They are riding a franchise-record four-game winning streak, with the woeful Oakland Raiders next up for slaughter.

For long-suffering Texans fans, it just doesn’t get much better than this.

Well, not until they lose on Sunday. Beware: There are a number of signs pointing to that happening.

In a way, how the Texans fare in Oakland will make more of a statement about where they are as a team — and where Gary Kubiak is as a coach — than did the win over the Super Bowl contending Titans at Reliant Stadium on Sunday.

“This is the National Football League. If you relax any minute, you’ll get your tail kicked,” Kubiak said after what he described as an unfocused practice Thursday.

While games against teams like the Titans are more difficult to win because of the quality of the competition, they also are relatively easy to prepare for compared to contests against a squad like the 3-11 Raiders.

You have to look to find things to respect about them. Not to mention, the Texans are going for the hat trick against the league’s most dysfunctional franchise since they have beaten Oakland at Oakland in each of the past two seasons.

Winning there is familiar. The rest of this isn’t. The Texans are favored to win by a touchdown on the road. This is a team that has won its last two road games — at Cleveland and at Green Bay — but prior to that had lost eight straight and 11 of 12 away from Reliant.

The Raiders aren’t nearly the team the Texans are, but …

There seems to have been a bit too much joy in Mudville this week. The question-answer sessions around the Texans couldn’t have been more upbeat if they were held at cheerleader practice.

“It’s a lot easier to come to work when you’re winning,” defensive captain DeMeco Ryans said. “Winning is fun.”

Little talk about Raiders

Indeed, but are the Texans reveling in their new status of “good football team” a bit too much? The media aren’t helping, but we aren’t supposed to. We just ask the questions and tell the stories.

Some of us are even talking about how great a job defensive coordinator Richard Smith has done with the defense. (Yes, the same Richard Smith we all fired over a month ago.)

Not many people are talking about the Raiders.

This week, a couple of Texans were asked how great it felt to be Pro Bowl alternates; others were asked how disappointing it is to only be an alternate. Still others, including some who are as close to making the Pro Bowl as you and I, were asked when they were going to make it to Hawaii.

Heck, even Mario Williams, deservedly named to his first Pro Bowl, was smiling and laughing with the media this week.

No players were asked what it will take to beat the Raiders. Instead they were asked how it will feel to win their final two games and end the season on a six-game winning streak and finish with the franchise’s first winning record, and what winning the rest of the games will mean going into the offseason.

Yes, the Texans already are talking about next year.

Um, fellas, there is some unfinished business.

Does letdown loom?

Kubiak has never had to prepare a team for a game like this. The Texans are riding a high, thinking they are invincible, favored on the road against a team that might play its heart out for its final home crowd of the season.

There is but a week and a day remaining in the season.

Can the Texans continue the roll and finish with a big finish, or has the past few weeks been the big setup for the big letdown?